Short Sale Magic -- Delaying the Sheriff Sale

Putting together a short sale package is time-consuming enough, but if you want to try and delay the foreclosure sale to give yourself more time youll find that this aspect of short sale investing is difficult indeed. Even professional real estate investors who have spent years making deals, find that attempts at delaying the foreclosure process are frustrating.

Depends on the Level of Communication The ease with which you are able to delay the Sheriffs sale depends on how well the homeowners have communicated with the bank during their downward spiral. If the homeowner in pre-foreclosure has just stuck their head in the sand and hoped that the problem would go away, you may have another bigger problem in getting the bank to delay the foreclosure sale.

Usually these types of homeowners have waited until its too late anyway for you to do much good in their case. It may only be a week or two until the short sale and youd need longer than that for negotiations and to gather the required foreclosure information for a short sale.

In short sale investing, youll find plenty of homeowners who have been calling the bank about their mortgage and working hard to keep up payments or partial payments before the banks loss mitigation officers were forced to file for foreclosure. These homeowners stayed in contact with their bank and kept lines of communication open. This makes it easier for you to request that the bank delay in filing for a foreclosure or delaying the sheriffs sale date.

Short Sale Tips to Delay Foreclosure In short sale investing the fastest way to delay a foreclosure is by contacting the bank in charge of the homeowners mortgage. If the homeowner has been ignoring their problems and not attempting to work with the bank, you need to open the lines of communication.

Attempt to stall that foreclosure by calling the bank in the homeowners name. As the real estate investor youll be the homeowners mediator with the bank during the short sale negotiations. You could be the most reputable person to intervene with the banks foreclosure filings. Call the banks costumer service department or the bank officer youve already been working with and let them know you need a little more time to complete your short sale package. If you are contacting the bank for the first time on this pre-foreclosure let them know you are an investor and what your plans are for negotiating a short sale. This information alone may get the bank to grant you an extra thirty days before filing for a foreclosure.

The bank may also be so fed up with the homeowners non-payment on the pre-foreclosure that they refuse to delay the foreclosure unless the payments are caught up on the mortgage. Some real estate investors will offer to catch up the past due payments in order to get the bank to cancel the foreclosure. Then, the investor just knocks those payments off of their offer price in the short sale deal.

Get that in Writing! Even when you get the bank to delay or cancel the foreclosure, the property may still end up in the sheriffs sale. This happens when the bank officer fails to get into contact with the attorney handling that particular foreclosure and letting them know about the delay. As is the case with many problems, if you want something to get done, youve got to do it yourself!

Have the bank send you a signed written agreement for a foreclosure extension. Also ask the bank officer for the fax number of the attorney that is handling the mortgage foreclosure. Send a copy of that foreclosure extension to the attorney and then call that attorney to make sure theyve gotten the extension.

Sadly, in short sale investing nothing is quite certain until money changes hands. Even with these extra precautions that house may still end up on the auction list through some fluke of luck. Youll want to call the court house after a few days to make sure that the property has been taken off of the property list.

Last Chance for a Foreclosure Extension You may be able to get the attorney or the title company dealing with the foreclosure to call the bank and request an extension. Foreclosure extensions are granted for a variety of reasons, besides giving the homeowners more time to catch up the past due amount or allowing an investor time to put together a short sale.

These ideas can work to help delay the sheriffs sale or get you a foreclosure extension from the bank. However, they may not always work and the attorney or the title company dealing with the foreclosure may not feel inclined to request more time from the bank for their own paperwork. If you cant get any of these tactics to work you may need to pull in some help in the form of a team of former loss mitigators.

Colin Egbert is CEO & Co-Founder of http://www.realestateinvestor.com/, the online leader for real estate investing education and networking. Additionally, he established http://realestateinvestorshortsales.com/, the #1 provider of full-service debt negotiation services for successful short sale investors.